
Book !^^i 

Gopyiight ]«I"__ZI _ 



COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



'^uiMi'. UZeX^ 



The Land of Fortune 




ILLUSTRATIONS BY COURTESY OF 

MR. W. J. WHITE 

INSPECTOR U. S. AGENCIES FOR CANADA 



Uo 






:: :: Copyright 1909 By :: :: 
ESTELLE THOMAS STEEL 
:: :: :: ashi.and, pa. :: :: :: 
AI.I. Rights Reserved 



ni A25942S 



'''' I hear the tread of pioneers 
Of nations yet to be ; 
The first loiv ivasJi of waves, where soo7i 
Shall roll a Iniman sea,^^ 

*' The nidi7?ients of Empire here 
Are plastic yet and warm ; 
The chaos of a niiglity world 
Is rounding into form ! '' 




one: of the tourists 



THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

TO MRS. JOHN KNOX GARDINER 
IN THE STATES 

My Dear Cousin: — 

We shall soon be rounding up the last hundred 
miles of our wonderful Canadian tour with the Nation- 
al Editorial Party, and I have not forgotten, that my 
last word with you "recorded a promise, the time has 
now come to fulfill." 

Had you not asked for my special "write-up" on 
Canada, I would simply have sent you a bundle of 
literature descriptive of the country, and Canada does 
not lack for word artists! Your much admired Kipling 
has been here. He introduces you to a climate that he 
calls "Crystal Atmosphere," "There was," he writes, 
"no true wind, but a push, as it were, of the whole 
Crystal Atmosphere." 

His description is both graphic and faithful. This 
Canada climate is a pure physical enjoyment and sat- 
isfaction, full of energy and push. You want to be 



10 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

up and doing. It is a stimulation that urges to 
emulation. 

This is the country and the climate you have 
asked me to tell you about, and in good faith point 
out why it might be a good opening for your boys, 
and so, all through this beautiful trip, as the " miles 
have slid behind us," and the prairie stretched beyond 
the limit of sight I have kept you in mind, your 
environment and equipment. Yours has been a 
thoughtful life ; and only your quick intuition and 
courage has kept it from being a struggle. But you 
have " won out," and you are now face to face with 
the future of your boys. You must send your four, 
big, comforting sons out in the world. 

Uniqualifiedly, I say Western Canada is a 
" Golden field of promise" to one who has brain and 
energy to expend in making a living and incidentally 
a fortune. I suggest and your own rational judgment 
will decide. But, taking the horns of your dilemma, 
what you want to do for your boys is not possible. 

The college training you would like to have for 
them you cannot give them, and your own college 
work gives you to know what they miss, and yet it 
will be made up another way. Not that I agree with 
the opinion of many a good hard-headed, self-made 
business man that " college makes a fool of the boys." 
No, what is wanting in a boy's common sense is not 
caused by " going to college." The lack w^as there 
before. There would simply have developed a different 
species of foolishness in the boy without the college 
career. Opportunity like genius is often a talent for 



INTRODUCTION 11 



industry, linked with the habit of being able to make 
a prompt decision. 

The universe gives location, climate, conditions 
and circumstances, from these the alert, ambitious 
and industrious man or woman can make, has made 
opportunity. 

Now as to " the boys." Your boys have had 
the benefit of the Normal schools ; they have been 
reared in an atmosphere of culture. The routine of 
work on your small farm has taught them practical 
farming. They have a full quota of common sense 
and they feel the need and desire to get out in the 
world to become bread winners, makers and moulders 
of their own careers. These are the kind of men that 
all Western Canada wants ; brains and energy rather 
than much money. But as I write it comes to me 
that in the regulations that apply to " Homesteading 
in Canada," I have seen this provision, *' A woman 
may take up a homestead if she has minor children 
dependent upon her for support." There is the solu- 
tion of all your perplexities. Prosperity is a guest at 
your door step. 

Go to Canada with your boys. That is the move 
for you to make. The idea of being separated from 
them has been tugging at your heart strings ever 
since you realized that there is nothing, absolutely 
nothing in your locality for them. Don't look 
aghast at my proposition. Consider it for a moment, 
and it will seem to you, as it now does to me, a most 
eminently fitting thing to do. 

My enthusiasm grows with the thought. It is 
so entirely practical. Surely this land of the "Last 



12 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

Best West" is for the "Golden Youth" of this 
twentieth century. 

Bear in mind this Canada West is not the West 
that our forefathers went out in ox-teams to conquer ; 
not a West of turbulent Indians and howling wolves 
as pictured in the classic pages of " Wild Western 
Scenes." In truth there are no pioneer problems. 
The virgin soil is there teeming with richness, ready 
to give a marvelous yield in both quality and quantity 
of its products. 

Farming in ' ' Miss Canada' s' ' Domain is a perfectly 
organized business. Minerva like, it takes its place 
in the arena of competition fully equipped for suc- 
cess. Farm machinery of the finest type and most 
cunning device lends aid to land development. Even 
the whims of the weather are neither to be dreaded or 
considered, for the Science of Irrigation makes the 
"prairie to bloom" when the weather bureau "has 
clear forgot" to send the needed rain. Irrigation invest- 
ment rivals the gold mine and foreshadows rapid 
settling up in the almost boundle.ss great North West. 
But more of this later. 

Just now I want to make clear to you the advan- 
tage Canada holds for you and yours. You are wond- 
ering what you would do with all that you would 
have to leave behind. Surely that is good for $2,500, 
and $2,500 welded to energy and intelligence makes 
you a capitalist. Six hundred dollars will buy you a 
small place of about 50 acres near one of the many 
small towns of Canada. Select a place near a locality 
where your boys can each take up 160 acres under 
the homestead law. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

If you have the will, you can, altogether take up 
640 acres. On your fifty acres acquired by purchase 
build a house for $800, and you have plenty left of 
your capital to keep you warm and feed you until 
your land commences to yield, which will be as soon 
as you commence to cultivate it. Your knowledge 
of diversified farming in this new field with favorable 
conditions will bring you wonderful results, mighty 
different from old time plodding methods and will 
appeal to your delight in doing things. I can anti- 
cipate your reluctance to leave your friends and I 
know you would have many regrets, but regretting is 
a part of life. So long as we have memories, we shall 
have regrets. Valuing old friends, it is yet delightful 
to meet new ones, and all over this broad beautiful 
world you can find good, pleasant well bred people 
who know their own kind by instinct. 

The Optimistic are the people who make the world 
go round, with these Canada abounds. You would 
not be in a Canadian community thirty days until you 
would be in the Womans' Club, doing as much work 
as in your own ideal club in your little town with its 
Chinese wall. 

As to churches, schools, and all that, as one of 
the National Editorial wits remarked, " It is alarming 
how these institutions are spreading over western 
Canada." Schools and public buildings are erected 
by the government, the people paying for them in 
reasonable and just taxation. In this way small towns 
of less than one thousand population gain at once, 
creditable and handsome buildings. I am tempted to 
go into the history of Canada. I picked up several 



14 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

books on Canada in the far off city of Calgary and 
have been informing myself on vital points of Cana- 
dian history. "First explored in 1535 by Jacques- 
Cartier, by command by Francis I. Quebec founded 
in 1608 by the maker of French Canada, Samuel de 
Champlaine, Jesuit Missionaries, ex-plorers, painted 
Indians. The fall of Quebec, British control." 

Shall I startle you by telling you that during the 
last seventy-five years every treaty signed between the 
United States and Canada has conceded more to the 
former than to the latter. " Too often," says one 
writer, " the desire, on the part of British statesmen 
to preserve peace at any cost has resulted in the sur- 
render of Canadian territory or rights." From a 
Canadian view point our Eagle has not hesitated to 
spread out his wings even to encroachment. 

But with it all, " The Colony of the Maple Leaf" 
is 250,000 square miles bigger than the United States 
and its population is only one-twelfth of that of our 
country. 

Two names stand out in Canadian history : Sir 
John McDonald and Louis Riel ; Sir Jchn the hero, 
the responsible man in the play of the nation and 
Louis Riel, the villain, a half breed Indian leader of 
insurrections. Sir John was the father of the Con- 
federation of the Provinces in 1867. Newfoundland 
alone rejected confederation and still stands alone. 
The history of Canada is fascinating, full of romance, 
even from the days of French possession. Politically 
it is a record of common sense, of diplomatic persua- 
tion on the part of the colony and an equally diplo- 



INTR OD I CTION 15 



matic yielding and paternal care on the part of Great 
Britain. The constitution of Great Britain has been 
centuries in making ; the best of it seems to have 
been applied to Canada. 

Through four systems, Imperial, Federal, Provin- 
cial and Municipal, law and order is maintained 
throughout Canada without a flaw. 

The great new Western Provinces are manipu- 
lated without graft or juggling and we have yet to 
hear of any scandal incident to the effort of any 
" trusted government agent " acquiring land by pecu- 
liar methods. There is no lawlessness of the Jesse 
James and Younger brothers order. The mounted 
police soon corral types of that kind and their cry is 
no longer heard in the land. A gun shot out of sea- 
son brings the mounted police and within twenty-four 
hours the perpetrator is apprehended and punished. 
A forest fire is discovered and disposed of before any 
considerable amount of lumber is destroyed. Our 
visit to Canada has been a tour of education. We 
have been gathering information of the country not 
yet copyrighted, and we have learned that this Canada 
west is positively the very last great area of undeve- 
loped farm land on the American continent. 

It is the last West and its people are brimful of 
enthusiasm ovei its prospects. But Canada wants 
more people to help develope its resources. The 
American is the much welcomed settler. The Cana- 
dian admires the American and wants him, but, at 
the same time, the Canadian says most courteously, 
but none the less emphatically, that Canada does not 
want to be annexed to the United States. 



16 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

Canada has her traditions and her love of country. 
All her patriotic feeling is centered about the Imper- 
ial Government. " God save the King " is sung with 
as much fervor as " My Country 'Tis of Thee." 

And as to liberty, that too often perverted siiib- 
boleth : Britain has dealt so judiciously and gener- 
ously with this most important of her colonies that 
liberty has followed ; a natural sequence to enlighten- 
ment. With increased wisdom liberty and law be- 
come more resolutely liked. 

Americans living in Canada are subjects of the 
Imperial Government. But all Canada knows that 
Americans go to Canada to better their condition. 
Loyalty to ones native country remains and is never 
questioned. Your boys will continue to love the 
Stars and Stripes and at the same time honor the 
Union Jack. 

One of the very pleasing features of our trip as a 
National body of editors from "The States" has 
been the mingling of the flags of the two countries. 
At every town along our line of travel we find our 
bonny flag honored and loved. 

Now, I think I have made it clear to you, my 
dear cousin, that you need not lose your birthright 
by moving your Lares and Penates to Canada. In 
answer to your inquiry, I am free to say, from my 
observations, that Canada offers you great advantages. 
It offers you what you and your boys can make use 
of, that is, farming land awaiting intelligent handling. 
You would receive as an American a most cordial and 
eager welcome. You, because of your desirability, 



INTRODUCTION 17 



are positively wanted in Canada. The importance of 
that is pleasant. But, if you seriously consider going, 
now is the time to look over the land and get the low 
current prices, as it is predicted that wheat areas are 
going to double and treble in values in the next three 
years. 

You will j5nd in my notes sketchy accounts of 
all the localities we have visited ; and if you will take 
the railroad maps, you will be surprised at the great 
number of small towns along the route. You know 
in Canada the railway is the real pioneer and pushes 
on in advance of the settler. 

As to the advantages and attractions of the dif- 
ferent towns and localities each one claims an attrac- 
tion peculiar to itself. 

Medicine Hat offers natural gas at thirteen cents; 
and who does not appreciate gas and its advantages 
over coal and wood. 

Indian Head claims to raise forty-two bushels of 
wheat to the acre. Calgary says it is the smartest 
town with any number of educational institutions and 
unbounded faith in itself. 

Edmonton has coal mines ; fourteen banks and is 
the capital of the Province. 

Saskatoon says, " Though the statement be start- 
ling, it is the greatest centre of railway construction 
in the world." 

Brandon has the finest Fair Building in Canada. 
Red Deer never had a boom ! 

Each town possesses something superior to the 



18 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

other and a sublime self-confidence that leaves you in 
no doubt of the accomplishment of all that is promised. 
The rivalry is good-natured and the emulation a 
worthy stimulus to progress. The world's greatest 
energies are going to be expended in the vast North- 
west even up to the " skirts of the Russian Domi- 
nions." The possibilities make one grow dizzy. The 
people who have already cast their fortunes with 
Canada are not extravagant. They are enthusiastic 
because they know the pleasure of success. 

And now with this foreword, I leave my notes 
for your consideration. Hoping for them a bon voy- 
age into your good graces, and for you a bon voyage 
to the Land of Fortune. 



ST. PAUL THE PICTURESQUE 

AUGUST 24th, 1908 

August 23d was the da}^ the National Editorial 
Party, on a handsomely equipped "special" pulled 
out of St. Paul, the picturesque, via Duluth, the 
wonderful, for the much talked of " Canadian Tour." 

St. Paul had shown the Editorial Association un- 
rivalled hospitality and most sumptions entertainment ; 
Woolsey planning to please an English Henry and a 
Francis offered no more. Untiring effort on its own 
part has immortalized St. Paul as a princely host. 
Each day some new diversion was offered. There 
were automobile rides over the city, to the beautiful 
Como Park, Minnehaha Falls and Fort Snelling, the 
oldest fort west of the Mississippi, where about a 
thousand soldiers are garrisoned. No American city 
has a more beautiful location than St. Paul, and no 
city in the world has a more beautiful show street 
than St. Paul's Summit Avenue. The shade trees 
are monarchs, the lawns emerald green and the resi- 
dences architectural dreams. 

Wildwood Park resort and an excursion to fam- 
ous Bear Lake were enjoyed, and the wonderful theatre 
which transforms itself like a magic palace into an 
auditorium seating 10,000 people. 

Then came Minneapolis with its entertainment at 
Lake Minnetonka and a magnificent entertainment at 
Donaldson's Glass Palace ; the finest department store 



20 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

in the Northwest. One of the most enjoyable of all 
the courtesies extended was the reception by Governor 
Johnson at the State capitol building. The capitol 
building like every new public building is large, 
magnificent, a joy to behold. However this Min- 
nesota capitol fulfilled a peculiar mission, in as much 
as it cost but four million dollars and gave every 
editor from Maine to Texas, who happened to be of 
the party, a chance to expatiate and dilate upon the 
Pennsylvania thirteen million dollar capitol ! 

Governor Johnson met the editorial people just 
a few hours after his nomination for the third time 
for Governor of Minnesota. He seemed a man in 
every sense of the word. His face showed lines of 
thought, of determination, of strength, sure indices of 
a character firm enough to carry purpose and equili- 
brium against any wave of mad irresponsible impulse. 

August 24th discovered the Editorial party in 
Duluth, the city located in the very heart of the con- 
tinent, at the head of Lake Superior, the greatest 
single body of fresh water in the world. 

The city takes its name from Jean Du Luth a 
French trader and explorer of 1687. In 1871, a 
Kentucky congressman in a humorous speech intro- 
duced Duluth to the reading public. Ever since its 
fame has been spreading. All the world knows of its 
marvellous growth like the enchanted cities of fairy 
land. Its iron, its wheat, its location, its harbor 
topographically not unlike the Bay of Naples, its 
amazing trade, its giant hills that await the skill of 
some magic engineer, its farm and dairy interests, a 
city of unprecedented natural advantages. 



ST. PAUL THE PICTURESQUE 



21 



Duluth has a population of 70,000. The Mesaba 
Ore Range contributes one million dollars in taxes to 
the school fund of Minnesota. The St. Louis river 
is another valuable asset belonging to Duluth. 

Fon du lac made famous by the more famous 
John Jacob Astor is on the St. Louis river. Through 
the courtesy of the Duluth Commercial Club the Edi- 
torial party were taken by steamboat to Fon du lac 
and shown the actual place where Astor did his first 
fur trading with the noble red man a century ago. 
The country round about is now the white man's 
own. Club houses and summer homes cluster along 
the shores of the river. 

Nature has done much for Duluth, but it was 
the brain and brawn of man that made possible the 
concrete dam which gives thirty thousand horse power 
developed under a fall of 378 feet. The dam is one of 
the show places of Duluth, and also the fifteen mile 
boulevard which winds its way along the crest of the 
hill from where can be seen the buzzing, booming 
city and the harbor stretching out below. Duluth 
has the only aerial bridge in this country and the 
finest High School building in the world. Duluth 
promises to be the greatest American city of the great 
Northwest. 



ACROSS THE FORTY-NINTH PARALELL 

AUGUST 25th, 1908 

Miles had vanished behind us. We had left the 
States, crossed the 49th paralell and had become the 
guests of the Canadian Government, and of the Cana- 
dian Northern railway. This Canadian Northern is 
the baby transcontinental railway of Canada. It was 
worked out and owned originally by two men. It is 
just twelve years old and counts up fourteen hundred 
miles of road in Eastern Canada and three thousand 
three hundred and more miles west of Lake Superior. 

The Canadian Northern is a great road ; it is 
primarily a Western road. With its advent business 
of all kinds expanded in western Canada and real 
estate values were revolutionized. It is going to push 
up into the Hudson Bay country, a region only known 
to the ordinary traveler as the seat of the fur trade 
but full of romantic interest, through to the yet un- 
opened farm lands of the Northwest. There is no 
lack of territory for exploiting the railway neither is 
there any lack of energy on the part of the company. 
Railways make farms and railways make railways, 
and these localities of the magical black soil need 
only their own railway to give them their rightful 
place in the general scheme of western development. 

We passed through Winnipeg, the "gate way 
city" with an au revoir wave of the hand — later, on our 
return trip the keys of the city were to be given into 



ACCROSS THE FORTY-NINTH PARALELL 23 



our keeping. The train rolled on and fifty-four miles 
west of Winnipeg came Portage la Prairie. The word 
Portage, generally used to designate "a carrying 
place overland between two navigable waters," is used 
in Canada as a verb. The city, Portage la Prairie, is 
a few miles off from the great Manitoba lake and is 
said to be in the richest agricultural section of all 
North America. The land has been worked for two 
generations and wheat to-day yields as high as thirty 
bushels to the acre "on land on the Portage Plains 
known to have been cropped each year for twenty- 
nine years by the same farmer."' 

At Portage la Prairie four transcontinental rail- 
way lines meet. Farther on came Gladstone and 
Dauphin, two promising towns on this new line of 
travel. 

A flying glimpse of Kamsack showed a town of 
600 people, who have the courage to predict that their 
town will be the commercial centre of the Upper As- 
siniboine valley. This is reasonable for last year 
250,000 bushels of grain were shipped from Kamsack, 
and in the month of June, 1908, 9,000 acres of Indian 
land adjoining the town were sold on an average 
price of ten dollars an acre, and some close to the 
town brought forty-five dollars per acre. There is 
plenty of timber, spruce, tamarack and poplar ; 
plenty of water, for in the Province of Manitoba of 
which Winnipeg is the capitol, there are the immense 
lakes of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Winnipegosis and num- 
berless smaller lakes. Small towns or settlements line 
the railway, and while they are not large they mean 
something. They form a centralizing point for the 



24 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

farmer who has taken up i6o acres "a few miles 
back." The actual existence of these towns none of 
them counting more than five years of life, indicate 
the fast settling up of available lands, and were the 
resources of this fathomless soil generally known, 
many a struggling breadwinner would shake the dust 
of an overcrowded city and come to a country which 
gives back with compound interest every dollar in- 
vested. 



THE FIRST WELCOME— HUMBOLT 

AUGUST 26th. 1908 

Our first entertainment in Canada as an editorial 
party could not have been more happily arranged. 
Situated almost in the middle of the Province of Sas- 
katchewan is the town of Humbolt ; sterling and un- 
pretentious, full of energy and equal to the task of 
greeting the party and extending the courtesy of a 
most substantial and elaborate banquet, all of which 
Humbolt did most graciously and cordially. 

The Mayor of Humbolt in a three minute speech 
made everybody sure of Hurabolt's hospitality, and 
started the fire of enthusiasm and interest in the minds 
of the travelers over the country they had been invited 
to come and look at and write about. We were now 
fairly in the wheat lands of a truly prairie province. 

Saskatchewan is an Indian word, the English 
equivalent of which is "Swift Running Water." It 
is interesting to trace the names the Indian gives to 
his possessions. There is always a peculiar aptness. 
The province of Saskatchewan was named from the 
river, a great big body of water which rises some 
where out in the Rockies, has a north and south 
branch, comes through to the northeast finding its 
outlet in Moose and Cedar lakes and finally into Lake 
Winnipeg. 

Farms and settlements along this river tell a tale 
of magical prosperity and marvelous yield. At Humbolt 



THE FIRST WELCOME— HUMBOLT 



literature commenced to shower upon us. We com- 
menced to read about this country we were trav^ersing 
and to realize that we were a very poorly informed 
lot, Canada knows how to tell its own story and tells 
it with all the vigor and finish of a Baconian or Emer- 
sonian essay. The style is deliciously ornate ; subject 
and predicate are placed most beautifully and accura- 
tely, the idea is conveyed even before the climax is 
reached. It is forcible literature. The most intri- 
cately turned sentence w^oven by Henry James is 
rivaled by a writer presenting the beauties of Saska- 
toon, who says, "Saskatoon is a beautiful, healthy, 
happy city, happy because its people are prosperous. 
Even the recent financial crisis which so calamitiously 
affected the whole continent, did not result in a single 
failure in Saskatoon. 

" Saskatonians stand to-day a practical demon- 
stration of the philosophy, that to be at ease financi- 
ally, is to be at peace with men — and to be at peace 
with men is to have achieved a full satisfying meas- 
ure of the joy of the earth. 

" We have a right to be proud of our city and of 
the sea-like sweep of wheat lands tributary to it." 

"The ineffable charm of Saskatoon lies in its 
all-pervading spirit of prosperity, a charm which ob- 
e.sses the stranger within the first hour of arrival 
and which throughout this whole, wide western coun- 
try is nowhere else so peculiarly and distinctly pres- 
ent." 

We left Humbolt at noon carrying the most fav- 
orable impressions and reached this same Saskatoon 



THE FIRST WELCOME— HUMBOLT 29 

in the evening. We found it a place fully up to its 
pretentions and its literature. One proof being in the 
statistical report that its cit}- assessment had soared 
from $750,000 to $7,000,000 in less than three years. 

The city has a population of 7,000. As a busi- 
ness centre its importance may be calculated from the 
maintaining of eight banking institutions. It has 
two daily newspapers ; two clubs both of representa- 
tive membership. 

It has thirteen churches, good hotels, fine school 
houses and good schools well attended, three railways 
to bring people to the town and if they are bright 
energetic people Saskatoon asks them most cordially 
to stay ; for she holds there is ample room and a 
bright future for the man who comes prepared to 
work. The cost of living is reasonable because the 
merchants of the town import their goods by the car- 
load. But Saskatoon's inestimable possession is its 
citizens. Their belief in the future of their town is 
contagious and we found ourselves joining cordially 
in with all their hopes and best of all in their belief, 
in that their present possession is the best there is on 
earth, whicn gives them " content all the year round." 



THE TWO BATTLEFORDS 

^ AUGUST 27th, 1908 

Leavdng Saskatoon, bright as a rainbow, in the 
early morning hours our train pushed along touching 
the smaller towns Warmen, Radisson, Fielding, Bor- 
den. The town of Fonda a little farther back we did 
not see, but we are told it is a place to see, one of the 
" three year olds." 

Our objective town was North Battleford. We 
reached there at noon. Here again were the keys of 
the city " given over" and eager, enthusiastic citizens 
tendered us a cordial welcome. 

The name of Battleford, if not actually historic, 
has place enough in history to be familiar to even 
those of us who did not or do not know Canadian his- 
tory. 

The Battlefords are not twins, not by many 
years. The reason for the existence of North Battle- 
ford is the coming of the railway in 1905, while Battle- 
ford, the original, dates back to the year 1876, not 
1776. We think our American towns old, only when 
they date to 1776, and here is Battleford claiming anti- 
quity and has only thirty-two years to its credit. The 
old Battleford of 1876 was in its prestine days the 
capital city of the Northwest and the scene of the 
second Louis Riel rebellion. 

Just a word about this Louis Riel, which, though 
an old story to the Canadian, will interest other 



THE TWO BATTLEFORDS 31 

readers, for we all begin to want to know more about 
Canada. 

Louis Riel was part Indian, the son of a white 
father and a half-breed mother. He had been edu- 
cated in Montreal for the Roman priest-hood, but, 
like many another product of civilization and sava- 
gery, discontent was the keynote of his nature. He 
had ambition without balance and an extraordinary 
vanity that urged him to resist organized authority. 

The "Red River Rebellion" occurred in 1867. 
It was caused by Great Britain handing over to Canada 
the Northwest country with the intention of extend- 
ing the Dominion westward. This Northwest was 
peopled with half-breeds, some of Scottish decent, 
some of English and many of French origin. These 
people thought they were going to lose their lands 
which belonged to them by right of occupation. Great 
discontent spread over the country and among the 
settlements. The storm centre was the French half 
breed party and Louis Riel assumed its leadership. 
Riel and his followers seized Fort Garry, now the 
city of Winnipeg, and set up a " so-called Provisional 
Government." Troops were called from the East and 
at their approach Riel promptly fled and his follow ers 
scattered. So much for the first rebellion. 

The second or Sackatchewan rebellion occurred 
in 1885, fundamentally from the same cause as 
the Red River rebellion, namely the encroach- 
ment upon the half-breeds of a hated civi- 
lization and the rapid disappearance of the buffalo 
upon which Indians and half-breeds alike looked to 
for a living. Louis Riel suddenly re-appeared from 



32 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

exile and a second time took up the cause of his rest- 
less compatriots. In this rebellion there was plenty 
of fighting. Battleford was one of the central points 
of the disturbances. Francis Dickens, son of the nove- 
list, was commander of Fort Pitt, a group of log 
houses in the form of a square, practically defence- 
less, as there were but " 25 " mounted police in 
charge. This garrison, if one may call it by so brave 
a name, knew its limitations. Commander Dickens 
seeing that the place could not hold out against the 
enemy withdrew his men and escaped down the river 
to Battleford. 

The Indians under "Big Bear" and "Pound- 
maker " put up a good fight. After considerable loss 
of life, the backbone of the rebellion was broken by 
General Middleton commander-in-chief of the Cana- 
dian militia. Riel gave himself up and Poundmaker 
and his people came into Battleford and laid down 
their arms. Poundmaker and Big Bear were im- 
prisoned. Riel Vv^as tried at Regina, found guilty of 
treason and sentenced to be hanged. At this time 
Battleford was 600 miles from the railroad. There 
are people living in Battleford who tell thrilling tales 
of the days of the rebellion and we imagine some day 
it will be made the subject of a vivid story. 

There is considerable rivalry between the two 
Battlefords, an amicable rivalry, however, as the 
towns combined and tendered us a most delightful 
entertainment. 

The town hall of North Battleford was trans- 
formed into a banquet hall. Decorations, the most 
elaborate covered the walls. American flags were 



THE TWO BATTLEFORDS 



draped with Canadian flags with most artistic effect. 
The menu was perfection. The two towns came to 
welcome and to serve. 

Small bunches of beautifully headed wheat tied 
with gaily colored ribbons were presented as souvenirs 
of the occasion. 

The mayor of each Battleford voiced a welcoming 
speech, and our editors responded with eloquent appre- 
ciation. They told how much information and knowl- 
edge they had gained since entering Canada. 

They praised the many excellent things en- 
couraged by the Imperial Government, and they com- 
mented markedly upon the law and order that reigned 
throughout the country. That ours was a tour of 
education seemed to be the keynote of every mind. 

The country editor is, if he can talk at all, a 
good talker. He tells his story well. He comes 
quickly to his point. The constant pressure from 
" copy wanted " has taught him to focus an idea on 
sight, and too, he receives unconscious training from 
the fact, that a popular editor shares the honor of his 
town with its clergymen and does much of the talking 
at town meetings. All this conserves to the end of 
making him the prince of ready speech-makers.. This 
happy faculty foiind full play and appreciation in the 
many Canadian towns on our line of travel. 

Battleford is 260 miles north of the International 
boundary. In its own words, in a beautifully gotten 
up leaflet, it says of itself, " Our surrounding country 
is agricultural and the achievements of many of your 
countrymen will go to show^ that from a standpoint of 



34 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

soil and climate the conditions are hardly surpassed 
anywhere for the growth of cereals and all kinds of 
garden produce. 

Good lands can be purchased at prices ranging 
from $10.00 to $15.00 per acre, within reasonable dis- 
tance of transportation and the productive value of 
the lands will show them to be worth many times that 
price. 

Good water is easily obtained and timber and 
fuel are not far away, so that nature here invites the 
industry of the willing settler. We wish to impress 
upon you that the great need of this district is a good 
thrifty American settler with $1000 on every quarter 
section within fifty miles of North Battleford.'* 



"SUNNY ALBERTA'* 

AUGUST 28th. 1908 

At Lloydminster the Province of Saskatchewan 
ends and the traveler crosses the line and enters Alberta. 
Our train just touched Lloydminster, There was not 
time to see much of the town, but some one has writ- 
ten a romantic story about the place that heralded its 
fame. It is known as the all British town as it was 
founded by English Colonists under Rev. I. M. Barr. 
Its name is very very English. Its people are the 
bright, energetic class that have put the word failure 
out of their vocabulary. There is a section of coun- 
try a few miles southwest of the town named ' ' The 
Golden Valley " where the farmers reap one hundred 
per cent, on their investment. 

Some enthusiastic homesteader coined for Alberta 
the appellation "Sunny Alberta." The name took 
at once and ever since it has been " Sunny Alberta." 
The adjective is most happy and prepossessing. In 
''Sunny Alberta" the remarkable characteristics of 
the climate are the snow-fall and the warm Chinook 
winds. These winds blow from the west and take 
their name from the Chinook Indian. 

One of the youngest and smallest of the growing 
Canadian towns supports the name of Vermillion. 

We arrived^^at Vermillion just as twilight shadows 
were falling, then followed the long, beautiful, fasci- 
nating evening of the North. Nine o'clock came, 



'SiWNr ALBERTA 



children continued playing about the streets, even the 
chickens refused to wink an eye ; there yet seemed to 
be time for doing something. Although Vermillion 
is almost embryonic, it promises itself just as great 
rewards as larger towns. The soil is a rich black and 
deep ch, so deep ! We saw a cart drawn by oxen, the 
wheels of which were in the soil up to the hub. And 
this is the soil from which the ducats, perhaps ''3000" 
ducats are reaped. Vermillion gave the impression of 
being .a really new Western town and its people were 
correspondingly hospitable. A public meeting and a 
dance was the program of entertainment. Editor 
Cameron who is advertised as the first prisoner taken 
in the rebellion of 1885 gave a welcoming speech. 
Samples of wheat and corn were displayed. 




The Raising of Horses in Central Canada Has Made Many a Farmer Rich 

Vermillion made a good impression and it is a 
place to be remembered, and recommended to the 
young farmer who wants to widen his field of action 



38 



THE LAND OF FORTUNE 



and is seeking a new country. The town is right on 
the railroad and there are many desirable sections of 
land near by that can be bought cheaply. There is an 
advantage in going to a town the size of Vermillion. 
Things are not finished ; policies are not shaped ; 
public spirit is there but it is not fully crystallized into 
concerted action. The new settler, if he be a man 
possessing qualities of leadership, is soon sought out, 
soon called to his place in the councils and manage- 
ment of the town. Thereupon follows his interest 

and earnest en- 
deavor for the 
good of the town 
he is helping to 
build. It is the 
spirit of progress 
that makes the 
citizens of their 
own small and 
large towns en- 
thusiastic in the 
up building o f 
the place. The 
towns are their children. They give to them the best 
of their thought and judgment. They want them to 
be creditable, desirable towns. This creating and 
shaping is an up-lift to both town and citizen. 

It is a law near to nature's heart that every single 
impulse toward better accomplishment is a general 
uplift. 

We seemed in this locality to have gotten among 
the Vs. Just a few miles from Vermillion is the 




The Beginner on a Farm in Central Canada 

The Logs in His House Were Furnished 

Free from Government Lands 



• ' SUNN V ALBER TA'' 39 

astonishing little town of Vegreville. Not in any of 
the towns visited could be found more ardent adver- 
tisers than in this town only incorporated in 1906, 
with a population numbering .1,000. Of course both 
telephone and telegraph lines are established. 

Vegreville has two banks, three grain elevators, 
of churches a goodly number, general stores, news- 
papers, hotels, everything necessary in the make-up 
of a town. It is another small town that may appeal 
to the settler with a small income. Land can be 
bought four miles south of the town for $9.00 per 
acre and the best land about six miles from the town 
may be had in half section lots at $14.00 to $16.00 
per acre. 

A little startling is the statement, that we are 
traveling over and viewing the very last western land 
on the American continent. 



And then [^the query was, why, " If this is all 
there is," such great eagerness and haste to settle it? 
Why not leave land for future generations to come 
and " take up?" But it is hard to grasp the immen- 
sity of these prairie lands. Regiments of farmers 
would not exhaust them. The farmer is needed be- 
cause he is the basic proposition of society. 

Think of the 80 millions of consumers against 
millions of producers. Doesn't that bring a realizing 
sense of the importance of "The hand that holds the 
plow." First the farmer and his plow, then the 
manufacturer and his wares. Canada calls for the 
farmer as a proposition on which is builded all that 
comes after. 



40 



THE LAND OF FORTUNE 



The province of Alberta embraces an area of i6i,- 
920,000 acres. It is double the size of England and 
Ireland combined. Its population is barely 200,000 
while 50 millions of bustling busy people could be 
located. 



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Lunch Hour in a Centra! Canada Wheat Field 



THE TWIN CITIES 

AUGUST 29th, 1908 

"Sunny Alberta" rose to the significance of its 
name on tlie morning of our arrival in Edmonton and 
Strathcona. Everywhere there was sunshine and from 
a clever people came a hearty welcome. Edmonton 
is the capital city of Alberta. It is perhaps of all the 
Northwest town, best known to the tourist. It is on 
the line of three railways and since 1905 has been en- 
tertaining most lavishly every trainload of tourists 
who stopped long enough to hear the story of its pros- 
perity. 

After five days travel, guests of Canadian skies 
and air, under the escort of Mr. W. J. White and Mr. 
C. W. Speer, men of rare understanding, the fact 
became definitely fixed that the possibilities in Canada 
had not been overstated. 

The story of Canada was unfolding before our 
eyes, we commenced to understand wliy we had been 
asked to repeat it from our own view point to the 
people in the states. Genuine enthusiasm came to the 
aid of the pencil point and it became a real pleasure to 
relate as we saw them, the many advantages offered by 
Canada to the home seeker. 

1)1 Edmonton we were most delightfullv enter- 
tained at The Alberta, a splendid first-class city hotel 
answering every demand of the tourist. The stores 
are metropolitan. No use to speak of lesser things 



THE TWIN CITIES 43 

like paved streets and fine business blocks, they are 
all there. 

Edmonton is the most beautiful placed city on the 
plains. It is built partly on a bluff overhanging the Sas- 
katchewan river and partly in a valley like tract down 
on the river bank. The view on the bluff is a never 
tiring scene of beauty. Meadow land and a small well 
wooded park add to the picturesque landscape. Ed- 
monton possesses the richest soil of any district in the 
west. It possesses a generous supply of timber, and 
in many places four or five feet of deep black soil can 
be found in this district. It has an unlimited supply 
of coal, which is easily obtained at different points, as 
well as along the river banks. It possesses every 
natural advantage to warrant great growth. 

i,ooo miles northward from Edmonton are the 
great plains of the Peace River district which is all tri- 
butary to the Edmonton district. Edmonton in its 
geographical position is the starting point for that 
region. But long before the lands to the north are 
tapped Edmonton wants people on it own surrounding 
farm lands. It seems to be a little more insistent than 
some other localities as to its advantages. It offers 
land within every reasonable distance from the town at 
$10.00 per acre. 

In coming to the Edmonton district the settler 
comes just at the right time. The schools are built, 
roads improved, churches established. 

The experience of many goes to prove that in the 
long run it is as cheap to buy an improved farm as to 
homestead. Taking into consideration that an im- 
proved farm is a producer from the start, and that 



4i THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

the family have school and church privilege's as 
well as near neighbors, instead of being isolated. 

Edmonton suggests to the farmer who has sons to 
locate to sell off the old hard worked farm at $60.00 
per acre and buy up land at $10.00 per acre, which 
soon can be increased in value to $40.00 per acre. 
Edmonton claims to be the young man's country for 
the chances of success are a thousand to one com- 
pared with the older country at home. The strength 
of the prairie and vigor of the mountain is in this 
Sunny Alberta. The climate is glorious. "The 
going of winter is as swift and definite as the advent 
of a sunny summer." There is not the tedious long- 
drawn-out-between season. Winter is winter, crisp 
and invigorating. Summer is never unbearably hot 
and Autumn is ideal. It is the long, long summer 
day that brings the marvelous yield of wheat. Be- 
sides spring and winter wheat there is a splendid acre- 
age from oats, potatoes, 400 bushels to the acre, flax, 
barley, rye and alfalfa, the never-failing universal al- 
falfa. 

Canada farming is not done on the hit or miss 
plan. Canada is the farmer's opportunity. The rail- 
ways made the farms, that is, made the making of 
farms possible and in every way the railway fosters 
the cause of the farmer. The 20th century farmer in 
Canada does not combat the problems that faced the 
settler in the prairie lands of the United States when 
with land values booming and magnificent and abund- 
ant yields the crops were left through lack of trans- 
portation facilities to rot upon the ground that gave 
them. 



THE TWIN CITIES 45 

A no less eminent man than Ex-Governor Hoard 
of Wisconsin has said: "The pathway of the American 
farmer has been marked with a pathway of destruction 
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, 
destruction of fertility and destruction of forests; and 
it is only since science, constructive, applied science 
has entered into the domain of agriculture, that we 
begin to find that there is in it a tremendous great do- 
main for the exercise of human intellect." 

But the farmer of the present day and the farmer 
in Canada will not be tempted into the prodigality 
and want of forethought of the old time farmer. 
Agricultural schools and the experiment stations have 
created a new man — the scientific farmer. Educational 
opportunity has been eagerly grasped, seed selection, 
crop rotation, climatology, soil, chemistry and culture, 
irrigation, breeding; the teaching of the practical ap- 
plication of these sciences has changed the farmer into 
a man of ability and skill and power. He has become 
a practical economist, and his "work in this fielcl has 
given to the products of the farm a distinct value in 
world commerce." 

This is pre-eminently the farmers' day and it is 
exemplified in the country village where he sells but- 
ter at 40c per pound and eggs at 35c. 

The Canadian Government and the railways are 
working with the settler to develope farming on a 
scientific as well as a business basis. Taxes are low 
and educational advantages are spreading, markets are 
opening. Live stock is raised extensively. Small 
fruits are now under cultivation. It is being tried and 
proven that Canadian soil will give almost anything. 



46 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

Land which was considered only fit for ranching is 
now giving big yields in cereals. Buying land in 
Canada is not speculation. The value is in the soil all 
ready to produce itself under the guidance of the 
energetic settler. 

Strathcona is a town of 5000 on the south bank 
of the river Saskatchewan opposite Edmonton. It 
boasts of a university. The town was named for Lord 
Strathcona one of the projectors of the Canadian Paci- 
fic Railway. He drove the last spike of the road at 
Craigielachie in the Rockies in 1885. 

Canada's poet Drummond, author of Johnnie 
Corteau pays a tribute to Lord Strathcona's spirit of 
progress in a poem called "Strathcona's Horse." 

"The strong young North hath sent us forth 

to battlefields away, 
And the trail that ends where Empire trends 

is the trail we made today. 
But proudly toss thy main aloft, nor think of 

the foe tomorrow, 
For he who bars Strathcona's Horse, drinks 

deep of the cup of sorrow." 



THE THREE KINGDOMS 

AUGUST 29th. 1908 

Wheat raising in Canada does not have a mono- 
poly. Timber and dairy interests grow clamorous as 
one approaches Central and Southern Alberta. 

At the town of Red Deer, on the Red Deer river, 
the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, servants 
of the human family, are experiencing a mighty de- 
velopment. We arrived at Red Deer in the morning 
about nine o'clock. The air was pure and crisp; the 
sunshine alluring and exhilarating. Self-poised citizens 
met the tourists, gave them brief, well timed words of 
welcome, then followed a drive through the town and 
surrounding country that gave practical instruction 
and proof of what can be done in diversified farming 
in the region. 

Lumbering interests alone are making the town 
wealthy. The country is well wooded. Many saw- 
mills are being located on the Red Deer river. 

Wheat growing is as satisfactory as in other sec- 
tions. Coal deposits make fuel cheap; the coal is 
semi-bituminous. Dairying however is about the most 
important industry. The rich pasturage produces a 
fine quality of milk that makes the business most pro- 
fitable to farmers and owners of creameries. The 
government creamery is located here. It is on the co- 
operate plan and puts out butter at an average price 
of 25c per lb. In 1906 the output for the year was 



48 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 



128,000 pounds. Red Deer has a population of 2500, 
and is a supply station for a wide stretch of farming 
and ranching country that is occupied chiefly by 
Americans, people from Eastern Canada and England. 
Many of them are quite wealthy and have taken up 
their residence here to engage in cattle raising on a 
large scale. Red Deer has never had a boom and is 
greatly proud of the fact. 

There is a little town "In the Shadow of the 
Rockies" called "Olds." This town of a few thous- 
and energetic enterprising souls came into existence 
in 1892. In 1893 some ninety Danes and Nebraskans 
arrived and swelled the group of settlers. Since then 
they have done everything in the way of farming, 
ranching and so on that any other town has done. 
They want to be taken account of and beg any home 
seeker to "See Olds First." The sturdy husbandman 
will find a most hearty welcome in this district. Land 
can be bought from eight dollars to forty dollars per 
,acre. Olds was one of the nice places in Canada we 
had to miss but we can easily tell some homesteader 
the straight road to "Olds." 

The city of Calgary is located on the Canadian 
Pacific main line, 840 miles west of Winnipeg and here 
the tourist gains the first sight of the Rocky Moun- 
tains "which form the glory" of Calgary. The city 
is built on rolling land that affords fine opportunities 
for landscape effects and the high altitude— 3000 feet 
above sea level — insures pure air, cool nights and a 
generally healthful climate. 

All that goes with a smart active city in the way 
of fine buildings, good schools, railroad service, well 



THE THREE KINGDOMS 



49 



equipped hotels, splendid trade opportunities, may be 
taken for granted in the case of Calgary; all of these 
are here and more. 

Calgary is a wonderfully pushing city. It im- 
presses the tourist at once that something is doing. 
It was an aspirant for the honor of being the capital 
of Alberta, because it held, that its attainments and 
possibilities were equal to such dignity. The award 
went to Edmonton, and Calgary rose from its disap- 
pointment to greater prosperity and with the ambition 
and determination to be the greatest city of the great 
Northwest. The Bow and Elbow rivers have the 
town snugly tucked in between them. 




Combining the Picturesque with the Practical Side of Farming 



From its position between the rivers some bright 
wit has worked out the answer to the conundrum: 
"Why is Calgary like a sweetheart folded in her 
lover's arms?" 



50 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

Calgary, not being made a capital city, has made 
itself. Its Board of Trade has put in circulation a 
booklet of 80 pages and upon each page tells of some 
definite advantage possessed by Calgary. Its people 
are progressive, educated, intellectual and cultured. 
Its schools are thorough, the Normal School and 
College preparing students for the various universities. 
It is a commercial and industrial centre and also a 
railroad centre, being 27 per cent, nearer the Pacific 
Coast than other Western Cities. 

The much talked of Chinook winds blowing from 
the Pacific and filtering through tne mountain ice fields 
of the Rockies bring a whiff of salt air into the atmos- 
phere. There is an altitude of 3000 feet, much sun- 
shine, cool summer nights, no oppressive heat. Fall 
is the ideal season, and winter moderate and comfort- 
able. The trade of the town may be calculated from 
a railway pay list of one million dollars per annum. 
Fur trading is a great business. Many tourists take 
advantage of the prices and buy a splendidly finished 
fur article for one-half the money asked in the East. 
Skilled labor is paid from 40c to 60c per hour. The 
Calgary district is famous both as a grain growing and 
stock raising producer. 

The carpet of Canada is a rich blue grass nourish- 
ing for cattle, horses and sheep, and "Flock Masters" 
are reaping unparalelled profits. Woolen mills are 
being established in Calgary and that means much to 
the sheep industry. To the tourist the topography of 
Calgary is fascinating. It lies among the foot hills of 
the Rockies, within five hours ride of the mightiest 
peaks in the world, with the beautiful Bow river at its 



THE THREE KINGDOMS 



51 



feet. Stoddard calls the Bow river the "silver key" 
which unlocks the silence and solitude of the Rockies. 
The color of the waters of the Bow are translucent blue 
bringing to mind the moonlight of fairy stories that 
delight the sweet pure mind of childhood. There is 
much to be told of Calgary for it is rich in its posses- 
sions. Manufacturing being not the least of them. 
There was an automobile ride that rushed us through 
the town out into the grain and grazing district. Up 
on the mountain bluffs, to the very edge, with the Bow 
river below, all this at Kipling's "Speeds no child 
should ev^er hear of and grown-ups should not attempt. ' ' 
But it was Calgary where rushing is not unusual, and 
in Calgary, mighty enjoyable. 




Sheep Raising is a Profitable Indusrty in Ca nada ^ 

It is fortunate for the newspaper man that he 
notes his impressions and advantages of different local- 
ities at first sight, for in the tangle of so many oppor- 
tunities found in each locality the mere recollection 
would resolve itself into a pandemonium of desirable 



52 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 



assets. Each district has some individual advantage 
or charm that will appeal to an individual want and 
which is patent and pertinent to its own citizen. 

All Canada is good, for one reason, it is new. 
The charm of newness is always potent. Think of the 
new house, its up-to-date appointments, all the new 
mechanical improvements that apply to house keeping 
and comfort making. The laying aside of the cum- 
bersome and obsolete for the convenient and adaptable. 

Fit this idea to a new country and a Paternal 
Government that works on the principle that foster- 
ing the interests of its people is maintaining the in- 
terests of the country. Without question there is 
confidence in such conditions. The proof is in the 
prosperity of the Canadian settler, and above and be- 
yond all his unbounded satisfaction and content in his 
present accomplishment and future prospects. 



THE WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS 

AUGUST 30th. 1908 

We have crossed and recrossed the Rocky Moun- 
tains on every railroad in the United States, but it re- 
mained for the Canadian Rockies to show the majestic 
grandeur of the mighty range extending from the 
Artie Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. 

It was a "misty moisty morning" when we arrived 
at "Laggan" the mountain station for the beautiful 
Lake Louise. Everybody indulged in their own little 
original — joke that there should be no "laggin be- 
hind." As many as could get ponies mounted and 
climbed up the mountain path. Vehicles carried 
others. So up the mountain side the ponies started, 
only a few moments and the valley road narrowed 
into a gorge road bounded by the towering mountains 
on one side and the river on the other with the rail- 
road and shifting cars looking like toy things down 
below. It was a scenic panorama of great picturesque 
walls of rock, fern and moss-covered crags. 

The energizing air laden with sweet scents of the 
forest filled the lungs with buoyancy. Nearness to 
nature's heart made one glad to be alive. The river, 
a branch of the beautiful Bow River rushed down 
splashing and dashing against the rocks with here and 
there a water fall of dainty beauty. 

About three miles up, the road expanded and 
here, set in mountain fastness, is the prettiest lake in 



54 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

the world. Switzerland and Lake Luzerne are en- 
trancingly beautiful, but Lake Louise is the queen. 
The waters are blue, blue as the sapphire and like a 
superb gem it rests in the heart of the mountains. 
Giant snow capped peaks tower on either side like lov- 
ing sentinels, jealous lest so pure a jewel should escape. 
"This is one of nature's masterpieces, which tiny 
though it be she has reserved for her exclusive satis- 
faction." With the almost irrisistable impulse toward 
poetic description, the silenced word is the truest tri- 
bute to the beauty of Lake Louise. A little farther up 
the mountain were two more "Lakes in the Clouds," 
Mirror Lake and St. Agnes. 

"Banff" is, perhaps, for the short time it has been 
celebrated the most widely visited beauty spot in the 
world. Here one gets all the glory and vastness of 
the mountain scenery. The views are incomparable. 
The sublimity of nature's work is awe inspiring. 
Huge precipices tower skyward while bewitching, 
beautiful, half hidden by peak and forest tangle, the 
Bow river seeking ever the beautiful places of the 
earth, winds in picturesque course, its turquoise waters 
shining like a mirror in the sunlight. It was up 
roundabout these mountains that Ralph Connor wrote 
his story "Black Rock." One of the thrilling books 
of the last decade. 

Banff seems to be a meeting place for mountain 
peaks, "Glacier-born streams fall from sheer heights 
or leap from ledge, sending upward clouds of white 
mist, where miniature rain bows are seen throughout 
each sunny day." White capped peaks raise their 
heads, often wrapped about with clouds to dizzy 



THE WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS 



heights. Through the mountains are "Alpine Mea- 
dow," fragrant with rare and delicate mountain 
blossoms; forests of golden larch, spruce and pine. 
The verdure is exquisitely delicate, each beautiful lake 
reflects in its placid surface the eternal mountains and 
the swift moving cloud. 

The Banff Hotel is a most delightful hostelry, 
elegantly appointed and beautifully equipped. The 
sulphur baths are considered very healthful and are 
very pleasant. 

Besides the large hotel which is set in the heart of 
finest of the mountain's scenery. There are a number 
of cottages and small hotels. 

BaufE is about seven miles from Bank Head. The 
latter place is becoming famous for its deposits of hard 
coal which is said to be as good as the anthracite of 
Pennsylvania. 

Canada Mountains abound in game. Once upon 
a time the popular idea of Canada was pictured by a 
hunter in snow shoes clad in furs, gun aloft in the act 
of shooting a moose. Civilization has not denuded the 
forests nor put big game out of existence. 

The moose, the monarch of the Canadian forest is 
found in every province in the Dominion, from the 
Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and from the 
Yukon to the International Boundary Line. The 
moose is indeed noble game, and when fully grown 
weighs over one thousand pounds, and has a spread of 
antlers from five to six feet and more in width. 

Possibly the hardest game in North America to 
secure is the musk ox, as it is only found in a district 



56 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

situated almost or quite within the Artie circle, and 
about the headwaters of the Great Fish River, also 
northeast of the Great Slave Lake, and in Greenland 
and Labrador. 

The black bear is found throughout the length 
and breadth of Canada. He is a harmless creature 
with a good coat in the early spring, and lives upon 
fruit, berries, fish, meat, bugs, lizards ants and mice. 
It is impossible to tell how he secured his notoriety as 
a dangerous animal, for in reality he is an arrant 
coward. 




A Scene in the Ranching District of Alberta 

The bighorn or Rocky Mountain sheep is to-day 
considered the most valuable prize obtainable by the 
sportsman. Its home is among the fastnesses of the 
Canadian Rockies. This animal is of a suspicious 
timid nature, but is sure-footed and self reliant in its 
mountain home, and will escape over rocks which the 
hunter finds impossible to traverse. Its flesh is pro- 



THE WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS hi 



nounced by epicures to be the most delicious of the 
world's game, and its massive, wide-spreading horns 
make a beautiful ornament. Of all Canadian game 
the bighorn is the most wary and difficult to bag. 

The Rocky Mountain goat whose uncanny beard 
gives him almost a human-like appearance, has his 
home among the giant peaks of the Canadian Rockies. 
He is a brave and fearless fighter, and is more than a 
match for any dog that dares to attack him. His 
sharp and needle-like horns and strong pointed hoofs 
are excellent weapons of defence against his enemies. 
He is the most daring of all mountain climbers, fear- 
less, sure-footed, and delights in scaling great heights 
and taking perilous leaps across chasms. 

Foxes, rabbits, hare, mink, fisher, marten, sable, 
otter, beaver, muskrat and wolverine, and all other 
small game, are plentiful throughout Canada, but 
must [be hunted in accordance with the game laws in 
force in each province. Most of the small fur-bearing 
animals are trapped by the professional hunter, and 
are not usuall)^ sought for by the sportsman. 

The "Mecca" of goose shooting is reached on the 
south side of Buffalo Lake, about twenty miles north 
of Moose Jaw; wild geese in countless thousands come 
down from their feeding grounds in the Artie circle in 
the months of September and October, and remain 
there until they take their departure for the south 
when ice begins to form on the lake. The country to 
the south of the lake is well settled, and the wheat 
stubble field affords excellent feeding grounds. Am- 
bushed in pits dug in the stubble fields in the line of 
the flight of the geese, with decoys set out, the finest 



58 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

goose shooting imagined by the keenest sportsman can 
be obtained. 

Every true sportsman is the friend of all game ; 
he travels far to see them in their native haunts ; he 
glories in the chase and in fairly out-witting these 
nimble creatures of the forest. When he kills, 'tis 
only to satisfy his needs, for he is distinct to the 
ignorant butcher who would ruthlessly exterminate 
all game; and to the educated sportsman is due the 
formation of game protection associations and the con- 
sequent increase in recent years of big game in Canada. 

British Columbia is beyond comparison the best 
big game country in North America, and it would not 
be an exaggeration to say in the world. 

The climate in the fishing season is all that could 
be desired, while in fall and winter, during the hunt- 
ing season, there is no severe weather that any hunter 
cannot easily withstand. 

There is uo malaria or fever such as are so com- 
mon in the big game countries of Europe and Africa. 
Venomous reptiles are unknown as are poisonous or 
noxious weeds, the only possible chance of danger 
being from the pursuit of game or the smaller risk of 
attack by wounded animals. 



SOME SMALL TOWNS 

AUGUST 3 Its, 1908 

Directly south of Calgary and less than fifty miles 
from the 49th parallel which we had crossed so inquir- 
ingly the first day of our trip, are the towns of Mc- 
Cleod and Lethbridge. The rapid growth of these 
towns establishes the fact, without question of doubt, 
of the wonderful producing quality and fertility of the 
surrounding country. 

McCleod is a bright little town just doffing its 
swaddling clothes. Beyond a very handsome hotel, 
its buildings are as yet unpretentious, but the welcome 
given the National Editors was royal and left nothing 
to be desired. A splendid luncheon was served in the 
town hall. A very delightful address of welcome 
came from the Mayor of McCleod and a cordial in- 
vitation from all the citizens to come and locate with 
them and share the honor of making McCleod the 
banner town of Southern Alberta. 

The self-reliance and self-containedness of all 
Western Canada becomes an interesting study as one 
travels the land and meets at every point, no matter 
what the remoteness, these characteristics. It is the 
solidarity of interests and desires that generates the 
hopeful and helpful spirit from which successful re- 
sults are a natural sequence. 

Southern Alberta has any number of thriving 
growing towns among which McCleod is one of the 



SOME SMALL TOWNS 61 



winners. There are Tabor, Cardston, Spring Coolee, 
Pincher Creek, Stavely, Leavitt, Claresholm, Manton, 
all centres for out lying farm lands, and each located 
either on the railroad or quite near it. 

Southern Alberta is from 1400 feet to 3400 feet 
above sea level. The open nature of the country, 
clear, dry atmosphere and the fresh breezes that blow 
across its plains, all tend to make it one of the most 
healthful countries in the world. There is an entire 
absence of malaria and some portions of the province 
are recommended as a sanitarium. 

This is no longer an exclusive ranching country. 
The experienced agriculturist is surely converting it 
into a prize wheat country. Already immense yields 
of wheat have been harvested. 

Wheat sown in August grows to a height of six or 
eight inches in the Fall, comes through the winter 
without heaving or injury, and, even with the little 
snow fall that prevails, escapes the "thaw and freeze" 
period. It is ready for the reaper from the ist to the 
15th of August. 

Climatic conditions are very favorable to this new 
departure of wheat growing in this Southern section. 
The winter is a season of' bright, cloudless days and 
infrequent snow falls which are soon blown away by 
the wonderful Chinook winds. 

The soil is a rich alluvial loam. In places gravel 
and sandy ridges occur, but in the valleys the accum- 
mulated silt dei)osits of ages has produced a soil of the 
richest kind and of great depth. 



SOME SMALL TOWNS 63 

There is no rain during the summer months and 
its absence causes the native grasses to cure on the 
ground, retaining their nutritive qualities in such a 
manner that stock pastured thereon remain fat all 
winter. 

The irrigated portions of this locality will raise 
all kinds of grain and root crops and a sufficient supply 
of fodder for winter feeding. 

The non irrigated sections will grow winter wheat 
cr furnish the finest pasture for live stock to be found 
in the world. 

I^ethbridge is one of the largest towns of this sec- 
tion. It is something of a railroad centre and in time 
will have fiv^e railroads running into it. 

The great million dollar bridge now being built 
by the Canadian Pacific Company is going to rank one 
of the wonders of the world. It will be one mile and 
forty feet long and three hundred and seven feet high. 

The coal mines at Lethbridge are its greatest 
asset. Last year 256,000 tons of coal were mined. 
Close to the city are three collieries that are spending 
hundreds of dollars in development work and will soon 
be producing a thousand tons a day. It is likely each 
of these mines will employ at least 500 men. 

Lethbridge farming is quite up to its mining de- 
velopment. Seeding of Spring wheat begins the last 
week in March and Fall wheat about August i. 

Fall wheat is harvested the last week in July and 
Spring grain first week in August. 



64 



THE LAND OF FORTUNE 



The farming season begins early in March though 
it is not unusual to work the land in January and 
February. Ploughing is often carried on up to the 
first of December. 

The vegetables produced in this district in quality 
and quantity are equal to any in the world. A crop 
of 600 bushels of potatoes to the acre is not uncommon. 

At the Seed Fair for the Province of Alberta this 
year the Lethbridge district made a clean sweep. All 
of the first prizes went to farmers living within a 
radius of forty miles of Lethbridge. Of 57 prizes 
awarded altogether, the Lethbridge district won 38. 




Ops of Central Canada's Churches 



IRRIGATION AND GOLDEN WHEAT 

SEPTEMBER I^, 1908 

Irrigation is as old as civilization and at the same 
time one of the greatest of projects in the way of 
modern investment. 

The overflowing of the Nile and the Chinese 
rivers and the good effects therefrom probably sug- 
gested the first ideas of irrigation. 

In Italy irrigation has been carried on since the 
time of Virgil and no country possesses so large an ex- 
tent of rich water meadows as Northern Italy. 

Taken from a National point of view, irrigation 
is a question of tremendous importance, for by this 
means all the rich organic and other matters diffused 
through the rivers, which would otherwise be carried 
to the sea, are saved to agriculture. Another econo- 
mic fact is that when the water is suited to irrigation 
the land never requires fertilizer. 

To the individual farmer the bare fact that arti- 
ficial watering insures him emancipation from the 
capriciousness of the rain fall is an asset of great 
worth in both his actual business summing up and 
again to his ease and peace of mind. 

The constant dependence upon the uncertainty of 
the weather has fostered in the mind of the farmer a 
certain anxiety that is almost akin to cowardice, and 
always means apprehension. But with the adoption 



66 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

of irrigation two or three crops can be obtained in one 
year, which will change a three per cent farm into a 
twenty per cent investment. The early spring crop 
affords pasturage to ewes and lambs which can, by 
these means, be brought earlier into the market. 

Irrigation is no longer a theory but a demonstrat- 
ed success; it has put the farmer on a business basis 
and promises to do much more for him. 

The Lethbridge District has the only extensive 
irrigation system operated for any length of time in 
Canada. The irrigation canal was brought into the 
city in September igoo. The entire system cost over 
$1,000,000. The area under irrigation to-day consists 
of about 100,000 acres, of which 65 per cent is under 
cultivation. 

From the sugar beets raised in the irrigation dis- 
trict in the vicinity of Lethbridge nearly 5,000,000 
pounds of sugar are produced. 

The great irrigation project now under way in 
Southern Alberta is being promulgated by the Canad- 
ian Pacific Railway. $5,000,000 is to be expended in 
the enterprise and a vast area of three million acres is 
to be watered. The block as it is called is larger than 
Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. The magni- 
tude of the scheme is bewildering. 

The water is to be laken from the Bow river and 
St. Mary's river. By the construction of a dam a 
body of water three miles long, half a mile wide and 
forty feet deep has been created. 

There will be the main canal, seventeen miles 
long; the three secondary caaals, one hundred and fifty 



IRRIGATION AND GOLDEN WHEAT 67 

miles long and the distributing ditches, eight hundred 
miles long, making a total of nine hundred and sixty- 
seven miles. 




Stacking the Grain in Central Canada 

Irrigation has practically unified the sentiment of 
manufacturers, merchants and transportation agencies 
in support of the small farm. The man with the big 
farm, being a large consumer and a shipper of freight 
has been by the natural law of bigness given greater 
consideration. This has been changed and it has been 
demonstrated, that on every irrigated area, a hundred 
farms of ten acres giv^e nearly a hundred times as much 
business as one farm of a thousand. 

Even in the most humid countries, scarcely a sea- 
son passes where the application of water, at the criti- 
cal time in the growth of a crop, would not add much 



68 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

to the value of the result. Farmers realize this and 
are not satisfied with returns that are the result of 
accident. They begin to know that irrigation means 
business. 

The resources of Southern Alberta are marvelous. 
Wheat has been king but bids fair to have to share 
honors on the combination farm. The crop of fall 
wheat in Southern Alberta in 1907 was estimated at 
3,000,000 bushels. 

It was in this district that our Special train was 
halted and quite a number of the tourists were taken 
in carriages to a wheat field ten miles distant. It was 
an ideally clear, crispy day. The air breathed health 
and strength into the lungs, the horses bounded over 
the good hard road. In an incredibly short time we 
covered the distance and arrived at the wheatfield. 

Did you ever see a Canadian wheat field? a billowy, 
wavy thing of yellow gold; no fence line, no shade 
trees, no hills and knolls of green, all yellow, yellow 
on every side, nothing but the horizon to tell you 
where this "cloth of gold" c^nds. The flavor of the 
wheat flower floats in the air. You grow dizzy look- 
ing, all wheat, wheat. It seems like rippling waves of 
the ocean. It is an ocean of wheat, so big, so much, 
you do not know in the clear atmosphere whether you 
are looking at one mile or ten miles of this living gold. 
And gold it is, for it gives of its harvest 40 bushels to 
the acre and with the predicted "dollar wheat" will 
net its owner $10,000. 

The opportunities in Canada farming are amazing. 
Wheat in Southern Alberta often produces thirty to 



70 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

forty bushels to the acre. Soil depletion is unknown^ 
Oats gives 90 bushels to the acre. Barley and Flax 
both give astounding yields. As to Alfalfa, it con- 
tinues to be an agricultural revelation, and something 
of a vi^onder to the Eastern mind. It is the oldest 
known forage crop and yet many localities are just now 
commencing to cultivate it. 

Southern Alberta with its great area of irrigated 
lands is coming to be a banner Alfalfa producer. Four 
crops a season is not an unusual yield for Alfalfa. 

Timothy, Sugar Beets, Live Stock, Dairying, 
Poultry raising and even small fruits all are managed 
on a paying basis with gilt edged promises for the 
"Combination" farm in Southern Alberta. This is 
especially commented upon from the fact that original- 
ly it was exclusively a ranching country. 

Beyond contradiction this is the time for the man 
with a little means to buy Canada land. A small farm 
at fifteen or twenty dollars per acre will pay 20 or 30 
per cent in crop values and fully as much on the rapid 
rise of land values. 

Mark Twain somewhere says "Once I could have 
bought St. Louis for six million dollars, but I foolishly 
let the opportunity pass, now it cannot be bought for 
hundreds of millions." 

The purchaser of irrigated lands gets an absolute 
guarantee of water and a title to both lands and 
water. 

On this vast tract you can obtain a home and in- 
vestment which will bring a constantly increasing 
income. 




HIS FIRST WHEAT SALE 

The First Grain He Ever Raised Himself Has Been Hauled to the 

Grain Buyers and Weighed and He is Now Receiving the 

Weight Ticket. His Farm Will Soon Make Him 

Rich, if His Smiling Face Tells Anything 



BANNER TOWNS 

SEPTEMBER 2d. 1908 

Until we arrived at Edmonton, we had been in the 
care of the Canadian Northern Railway, traveling over 
its road and accepting its many courtesies. At Ed- 
monton, we were given over to the courtesies of the 
Canadian Pacific Railway, and then travelled south 
through the lands in Southern Alberta that are to be 
w^atered from a great irrigation plant. 

In the full glory of a bracing September morning, 
we arrived at Meclicine Hat. We were prepared for 
Medicine Hat, for it is the best advertised town in 
Canada. Kipling has put a halo about it by saying 
" It is the town that was born Incky." His Epigram- 
matic wit has gone farther and coined a classic phrase 
well known to all Canada pointing out quite definitely 
the town's base of supplies. 

Medicine Hat talks about its crops and farm lands, 
but it talks more about its natural gas, for therein are 
its trump cards, and it holds twelve with ace high. 
The town is in the heart of the territory underlaid by 
a great gas bearing stratum. This mysterious gift to 
Medicine Hat promises to make it the Pittsburg of the 
West. Already hundreds of steel drills are boring in 
to caverns where billions of cubic feet of gas wait to 
burst through the containing pipes. Gas is thrown up 
so abundantly that it is used for all purposes, for heat- 
ing and lighting, for household heat, light and cook- 



BANNER TOWNS 



ing, for public buildings and factories, for the streets 
at i3>^ cents per thousand cubic ft. Gas for manu- 
facturing is furnished at five cents. 

Medicine Hat confidently looks forward, and with 
warrantable ambition, to becoming a manufacturing 
centre for the whole enormous territory lying between 
Winnipeg and the Pacific Coast. 

Out on the nearby prairie is a gas manipulated 
brick making establishment which sells bricks at $40 
per thousand. 

The shops of the Canadian Pacific Railway are 
located here. Natural gas instead of coal is used in 
firing up the engines saving to the company about six 
thousand dollars a yea^. With gas, locomotive tires 
can be reset without removing the wheel. 

A pleasant feature of the town is its park system 
and municipal nursery, the latter for the encourage- 
ment of local tree planting. The trees are obtainable 
as seedlings from the Forestry farm at Indian Head, 
kept for a couple of years at the city park nursery and 
then transplanted into the grounds of such residents 
as desire them, the condition being that they are 
placed within a certain distance of the street. 

The population of Medicine Hat is about six 
thousand. Apart from merchants and professional 
men, the occupants of the city are mostly wealthy 
ranch men. 

After leaving Medicine Hat, we came once more 
in the province of Saskatchewan. Traversing the 
Swift Current region which is renowned for its nutri- 
tious grasses, we found ourselves again in the centre 



BANNER TOWNS 75 



of the grain growing district. It was harvesting time 
and at various points, we had the opportunity of seeing 
the great puffing engines and threshing machines har- 
vesting the golden wheat for the elevators. 

The immensity of this wheat traffic cannot be 
made plain with the editorial pencil. It is so big, the 
areas so tremendous and the yield so satisfactory and 
unusual that one can only say to the farmer and to the 
globe trotter go and see for yourselves. The informa- 
tion is worth all the trouble of the long trip. 

The town of Moose Jaw is the most important 
divisional point on the Canadian Pacific road. Septem- 
ber second in the evening we arrived here. The citi- 
zens had arranged for a town meeting. This meeting 
was most successful, interesting and informing. The 
subject of annexation came up and I fancy some of our 
American Editors who have been coquetting with the 
idea that Miss Canada's arm was to be tucked under 
the protecting arm of Uncle Sam, joining their for- 
tunes under one flag and that flag Uncle Sam's receiv- 
ed something of a shock in the pronounciamento which 
came from ona of our hosts, that Canada did not want 
to be annexed, Canada reveres her institutions the 
same as we do. Canada is a part of the Imperial 
Government of England and she loves all its traditions. 
The subject of annexation furnished opportunity for 
eloquent and grandiloquent speeches but all the flowery 
sayings from a flowery kingdom could not convince 
Miss Canada that she wants to be annexed to the coun- 
try south of the 49th parallel. 

Under this head, the Toronto Star asks "Will 
patriotism, American or Canadian, suffer by the inter- 



76 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

change of population aud the knowledge thereby gain- 
ed? Rational patriotism will not suffer. No patriotic 
citizen of Canada or of the United States will regret 
that the people of the two couutries are beginning to 
understand each other. The development of each 
country, the national ambition of each country will be 
furthered by the clearing away of those misunder- 
standings, which elsewhere create danger of war." 




The Pork Industry is Being Rapidly Developed in Central Canada 
Pork-packing Plants Are Established at Various Places 



To sum up the situation both Canadians and 
Americans may measure the others loyalty by their 
own which naturally will close the dis«.ussion. 

Moose Jaw is a fine town. No need to tell the 
origin of its name-. South of Moose Jaw is a grain 
belt that cannot be surpassed for productiveness and 
reliability of crop under good tillage. 

There are indications in the air that Moose Jaw is 
to grow and spread. A street car conductor in Win- 
nipeg told us that he was investing all his earnings in 



BANNER TOWNS 77 



lots in Moose Jaw and expected to make largely on his 
investment. 

Moose Jaw has a population of 8,000 people and is 
the entrance point via the Soo line railway into West- 
ern Canada. Along this Soo line which comes in from 
St. Paul are located some of the finest small towns in 
Canada. No district in Western Canada has ex- 
perienced such rapid development associated with pros- 
perity as has this line and district in the last four years. 
The principle towns in this famously fertile country 
are Yellowpass, andWeyburn, the oldest of this group. 
Wilcox just three years old, Milestone, Roulean and 
Drink Water. In this district there are not many 
available homesteads, but then there is a fine wheat 
land for sale at very reasonable prices. The soil and 
climate produce "No. i Hard" wheat and easily 35 
and 40 bushels to the acre. Moose Jaw is going to be 
a great distributing centre and that is a very valuable 
consideration to the new settler. 

The establishment of the Western Real Estate 
Association is one of the most important business 
movements ever made in Western Canada. Its avow- 
ed object is for the purpose of exerting effectively a 
combined influence upon matters affecting real estate 
interests and to promote immigration. 

Representatives met the editors at various places 
along the line of travel. They carried badges on 
which was imprinted the unique wording: 

Our Field 
Western Canada from the Great Lakes to the Pacific. 

Our Objects, 
Progress to our Country. Success to Ourselves. 



78 



THE LAND OF FORTUNE^ 



The real estate 
lime liglit. 



agent in Canada is constantly in the 




A Garden Plot in Saskatchewan 



perty m instalments is ttteir us the 

,3 -^--^^;~:re\«;itraffai'sa-e admiuis- 
r^tur Jit Xeni. I U largely on the advice 



BANNER TOWNS 79 

of the real estate agent and under his direction that 
new districts are opened up. It is through him that 
values of property in dispute are determined, he is a 
medium between the man with the house to sell and 
the man who wants to buy. His services are invalua- 
ble. It is a business, too, in which square dealing is 
essential, as the buyer of today may be the seller of 
tomorrow. 

The realty broker is a very necessary adjunct in 
the buying and selling, and this organization which 
has members and vice presidents in every province. 
Protects the broker, the capitalist and the customer 
and has practically eliminated the untrustworthy ele- 
ments which creeps into the real estate business per- 
haps more than any other line of legitimate business 
in the world. 

Following our itinerary, our train reached Indian 
Head on another of Canada's glorious, crispy, clear 
mornings. The air seemed health itself and imparted 
a certain quality of resoluteness to the mind. I never 
before realized that atmospheric conditions could so 
potenth' influence the mental attitude. Although 
miles away, the balminess of the Chinook winds "fil- 
tering through the Rockies" is felt at Indian Head. 
Here again the citizens met the tourists with teams 
and carried them through the town out to view the 
experimental farm. The farm is laid out in drives 
and walks and is conducted on the most scientific 
principles; it gives an annual yield in wheat of 42 
bushels to the acre. The farmers around Indian 
Head are adopting the new methods of the experiment 
station. They have intensified their methods and are 



80 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

reapiug incredible results in profit. They actually 
claim on small farms to have cleared $2000 in one 
year after paying all living expenses. 

We were told by a resident a son of an English 
Clergyman that he had great prospects from his farm 
of 100 acres, great enough to make him thoroughly 
contented with Canada. He said, "There is more 
chance in Canada than at home in England, the class 
distinctions are not so hampering and children of this 
generation will never know them." 

Canada is very considerate of her adopted children. 
Indian Head and the surrounding country is populat- 
ed with alert, intelligent citizens. They work on the 
principle that good business is to get the largest le- 
gitimate returns from the smallest possible investment, 
and they set the seal of safety on farm investment and 
the seal of profit on intelligent up-to-date farming. 



REGINA 

SEPTEMBER 2d. 1908 

Our visit at Regina was indeed a gala time. First 
we were given a reception at the City Hall which is a 
beautiful specimen of architecture in the Gothic and 
Renaissance styles. 

Representative men and women of Regina met the 
tourists. After viewing the municipal building, we 
were escorted to the hotel where a magnificent banquet 
was tendered. This was fine in the extreme. The 
speeches of welcome and response, of good will and 
congratulation were replete with intelligence and good 
sense. We were most fortunate in having with our 
party a number of women who could make speeches 
and when a woman can talk in public it is the best 
entertainment in the world and everybody enjoys it. 
At Regina, we had the pleasure of having dear Mrs. 
Parrott respond in behalf of the women to the hospital- 
ity and cordiality we were receiving. Mrs. Parrott 
was delightful, placid and pertinent and always popu- 
lar, she said just what every woman wanted voiced, 
just enough, and said it most pleasingly. 

It is a talent to know how to say the right thing 
and to be able to make a brilliant stop. 

Our other women talkers were Miss Ruling of 
Chicago. Her precise and beautiful English was a 
joy to hear. . _ . 



REGINA 83 

There was Mrs. Wilson an American but a resi- 
dent of Canada, She was full of youthful enthusiasm 
and talked delightfully. 

Mrs. Snyder, of Chicago, is a very gifted woman. 
Her voice is pleasing both in speech and song. Her 
responses on several different occasions were enthusia- 
stically received. 

Miss Florence Dymond, from Louisana, always 
pleasing, made a very graceful response at Winnipeg. 

After the banquet our party was taken to see the 
quarters of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. 
The Mounted Police of Canada is its standing army 
and peace keeper and does its work effectively and 
successfully. The home of the Governor of the Pro- 
vince is situated a few miles out of Regina. Here the 
tourists were given a reception by Governor and 
Madam Forget. 

The name Forget is French and in pronouncing 
it one must forget the last letter making the e an a, 
and the g soft. 

The reception was one of the most pleasing and 
enjoyable favors of our trip. It is always interesting 
to have a glimpse of the home keeping of other coun- 
tries. We found the official residence at Regina a 
most charming place and Governor and Madame For- 
get delightful as host and hostess. 

The ccnservatories were thrown open to the guests 
which added much to the pleasure of the occasion. 
The collection of Bogonia plants was amazingly large 
many of them being prize winners. 



REGINA 85 



Regina is the center of the richest portion of the 
great Canadian West, and for miles on every side the 
land cannot be excelled for fertility. 

A result of this favorable location may be seen in 
the growth Regina has made during the past few years 
shown b}^ these figures of new building construction 
in the city during the past four years: In 1904 the 
outlway was $210,000; 1905, $750,000; 1906, $1,982,- 
000; 1907, $1,177,840. Buildings, public and private, 
are now under construction at Regina to the value of 
$2,210,000. 

It is a beautiful, clean, commodious town. It has 
an unusually large number of attractive private resi- 
dences and a v^ery desirable social life. 

Areola is a small town south of Regina, it is the 
centre of a fine w'heat district and the crops have been 
good for a number of years. It has six grain elevat- 
ors, a telegraph and an express ofiice, a large flour 
mill, a brick yard with a capacity of 30,000 per day 
and excellent retail stores. Its elevator capacity is 
about 200,000 bushels. 

The town is ten years old and counts 100 citizens 
for each year of its age. 



BACK IN MANITOBA 

SEPTEMBER 3d. 1908 

The province of Manitoba was the sphere of the 
pioneering efforts in Central Canada's immigration. 
In 1870, when Manitoba entered the Confederation it 
had only 17,000 inhabitants; today its population is 
400,000, largely English Speaking. Then its agricul- 
tural productions found no place in the records; in 
1881 it was credited as producing 1,000,000 bushels of 
wheat and 1,270,268 bushels of oats. 

In this province the rich soil and favorable clima- 
tic conditions are a bank account upon which not more 
than a portion of the interest is being drawn. Twenty 
million acres are here to crop with only five million 
acres now under cultivation. Lands can still be pur- 
chased at from $5 to $40 an acre, according to quality 
and location. Resident farmers, whose lands are 
valued at from $15 to $40 an acre are realizing a re- 
venue from the same equal to seven per cent on an in- 
vestment of more than double this value. 

One hundred and fifty miles west of Winnipeg is 
the thriving town of Souris. Situated on the high 
banks at the confluence of Plum Creek with the Souris 
River this is one of the few towns of Manitoba that 
owes much to the advantages of situation. The valley 
of Plum Creek, winding down from the west, breaks 
into the Souris valley some thirty miles above its en- 
trance into the Assiniboine valley. Here the town 



BACK IN MANITOBA 87 

overlooks the valleys of both streams, stretching west- 
ward and eastward, making a delightful situation that 
has given it the reputation of being the prettiest town 
in Manitoba. 

It has a flour mill of 400 barrels capacity. The 
elevator capacity is 300,000 bushels. 

It is to be regretted that we could not tarry in 
Souris but the people of Brandon were waiting for the 
coming of the Editorial party. 

Brandon is called the "Wheat City." It has a 
population of 12,000. The streets are beautifully 
treed and boulevarded making the city an ideal place 
of residence. Splendid hotels entertain the traveler, 
and square business people meet the customer. 

The central experimental farm of the Dominion 
Government is located here. This farm includes por- 
tions of valley and upland and represents all classes of 
soil likely to be found in individual homesteads. This 
makes the results reached very useful to the farmer. 

The Winter Fair in Western Canada is an institu- 
tion of comparatively recent date, and that it has come 
to stay and to wield a powerful and beneficial interest 
in this great stretch of farming and stock raising 
territory may be accepted as a fact, final and indisput- 
able. In no other part of the farming world does the 
Winter and Summer Fair form so absolutely essential 
a part of the farming and stock raiding machinery as 
it does in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and in some 
respects the Winter Fair is the more far-reaching in 
its influence. It is the reflection of the Agricultural 



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pi 


1 






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ten 
2 <^ 



■^ o 

g — CO 

O c ^ 

EG ffi & 
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51 



BACK IN MANITOBA 



Industry; the dial which records the workings of the 
Agricultural Machinery. 

Brandon has two railways, is the market centre 
for this very fertile portion of Manitoba and invites 
manufacturers to come and locate there. It is on the 
Assiniboine river another inducement to the manu- 
facturer. 

The Brandon Board of Trade tendered a most 
magnificent luncheon to our party. Nothing could 
have been more hospitable and no where along our 
line of travel did we meet more delightful or more 
progressive people. 

Brandon has a great future ahead of it. All it 
needs do is to live up to its advantages. 



CANADA'S PEOPLE AND PROSPECTS 

SEPTEMBER 4th, 1908 

Agricultural life in Canada does not mean isola- 
tion. Population came with the advent of the rail- 
road, and brought with it a natural desire for the social 
side of life. All through Canada there is a cordiality 
and open heartedness that greets the new settler and 
the tourist and evidences the fact that the ethical is as 
important in this Northland as the practical. 

The social gatherings of a semi-public nature that 
bring together people of all classes show a single pur- 
posedness that argues much for the general advance- 
ment in this new country. 

The people are all energetic, active and industrious, 
proud of their homes, their city and territory. They 
are always ready and willing to talk about Canada and 
they do not concede that any country on earth is its 
superior. Very few old people are seen, the great 
majority of the citizens being young or middle aged 
people in the prime of life. 

The story of the accomplishment of these people 
sounds almost like a fairy tale, but when one meets 
them and gets to know them and sees the way in 
which they work he understands better how the great 
results have been obtained in so short a time. 

While Canada has immense elevators and flouring 
mills, it has never lost sight of the importance of its 
school house. It educational system is the very finest 



92 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

in the world. Each town and community vies with 
some other to keep a Httle better and do a little more. 

The public school Curriculm embraces besides the 
usual fundamentals, Manual Training, Drawing and 
Art Work, Music and Physical Culture. All the lar- 
ger towns boast of academies and colleges and Uni- 
versities. Canadians naturally are a bright intelligent 
people and the majority of the new home seekers while 
not up to the mark financially possess the incalculable 
capital compressed in an education. 

Canada's sunshine is its greatest gift from nature. 
In scriptural phrase we are admonished to "Walk in 
the light" for there is no hope in darkness. 

Think of the 20 hours of glorious beautiful 
sunlight as compared with "lighting the gas" at three 
o'clock P. M. in New York. 

It is a scientific opinion that the wear and tear on 
the body is less in the long daylight countries because 
the body does not have to resist the depressing effect 
that accompanies shadows and darkness. 

Can you wonder that Canadians are the most 
optimistic, ambitious people on earth. They are 
keenly alive to their wonderful advantages and are 
determined to make every one of them work for the 
upbuilding of the country. They apply their intelli- 
gence and acquirements to business and to their 
methods of living. They get the most their is in life. 

The development of their own talents and the de- 
velopment of the country are both paramount objects. 



CANADA'S PEOPLE AM) PROSPECTS 



93 



When a man once possesses himself he comes also 
in the possession of material things. It is every man's 
ambition to own something and under the powerful 
stimulus of the two fold idea of owning and working, 
the people of Canada are building up a mighty 
Empire. 

"Communities do not grow by chance but by the 
operation of physical laws. Position, climate, moun- 
tains, valley, rivers, arable lands, minerals are predest- 
nating forces in a nation's history." 

The geographical position of Canada is in the 
main axial line of the world's grand commercial move- 
ment. 




School in a Country Town 



The development of Western Canada is not an ac- 
cident. The untouched resources of land are here and 
an ever growing multitude will come to gather in and 
possess the wealth of the country. 



94 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

Man is naturally an agriculturist and agricultural 
lands since the days of Eden, have steadily increased 
in value. A writer in one of the recent magazines 
says, "The time is coming, is near at hand, when the 
farming country of the prairies will be the thobbing 
heart of the nation's industrial and commercial life. 
Mines and forests we are told are being rapidly ex- 
hausted, but the resources of the fathomless prairies 
rightly conserved is inexhaustable. Gradually the 
soundness of the farming life is making itself known. 
The prairies offer to the nations of North America a 
treasury of exhaustless life, a life of firm first rela- 
tions with the soil, of fixed industrial principles, of 
limitless capacity for expansion and service." 

What politics or statecraft, or finance cannot do 
in the way of perpetual restoration of life's wear and 
tear, that the miracle of the soil can do. There lies 
the unmeasured, the unguessed power of the Western 
Canada Prairie Country. 



WINNIPEG 

SEPTEMBER 5th, 1908 

We bade adieu to Brandon, the hospitable, and 
travelled on to Winnipeg, the largest city of Western 
Ci^nada. Here again we met with what had come to 
be proverbial Canada hospitality. 

In 1870 Winnipeg was a wayside hamlet, a little 
trading post of the great Hudson Bay Company, with 
a population of 215 souls. 

The growth of Winnipeg is phenomenal. During 
the last ten years it has doubled its population twice 
and now ranks as a city of 125,000 people. 

While Winnipeg is young it still has the distinc- 
tion of possessing an individual history. The city 
sprung originally from Old Fort Garry, which was 
built by the Hudson Bay Company when there was 
need of defensive measures against the Indians. The 
Fort was built of stone and mortar. The walls loop- 
holed for rifle fire and bastions at the corners where 
cannons were mounted. This is not more than sixty 
years ago. Twice within 38 years there have been 
rebellions of the half breeds. "But now the Assini- 
boine River flows peacefully past the fort, hearing 
nothing more hostile than canoeists in search of 
pleasure " and the Fort is a mere relic. 

The main street of Winnipeg is built upon the 
trail formed by the Indians while going north to the 
timber countries of Saskatchewan. 



WINNIPEG 97 



But this is all ancient and Winnipeg and the 
"Last Best West look ahead. They let the dead past 
bury its dead and act in the living future." 

There is so much to do, such a big country to set- 
tle up and such wonderful resources to utilize that one 
gets busy merely contemplating it. 

Winnipeg is the political as well as the commercial 
centre of Western Canada. The Legislative and the 
Departmental buildings of the Manitoba Government 
and the chief immigration, lands and timber offices of 
the Dominion Government for the West are located 
here. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has its 
chief offices in the West in Winnipeg. The Canadian 
Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific Railway also have 
land offices at Winnipeg where full information of land 
in the companies' districts can be obtained. 

There is no unnecessary elaboration in the method 
of securing land in Canada. Upon inquiry, prices, 
location and resources we find they are explained 
fully and concisely to the applicant. The entire trans- 
action is arranged by a smooth, understandable 
business method. The companies are quite explicit in 
stating the needs of the settler. They say that he 
ought to have four good horses which will cost from 
$600 to $700; set of harrows, $25.00; one wagon, $75 
to |8o, if new, and if second hand, $45.00: one seeder, 
$85; one mower and rake $95; two cows, $80; pro- 
visions for him.self and family, about $200. A habit- 
able house, 18x20, one story high can be built for 
$200. It will of course have to be added to for the 
winter. He should also have one brood sow, $15.00; 




One of the Homes in Central Canada where the Government Houses 
the Emigrant for a Short Period After His Arrival 



WINNIPEG 93 



forty or fifty hens, $15.00. With this outfit he will 
be in a position to commence comfortably, and will be 
much better off than most of the early settlers were 
twenty years ago. Some of those who had scarcely 
any capital are now in independent circumstances. 
The outfit mentioned will cost about $1,500. When 
the first crop is ready for harvest a binder will be re- 
quired, but it can be paid for out of the proceeds of 
the crop. 

A young man entering for his homestead say, in 
May or June, for which he pays the Government 
agent $10.00 can with practically no capital start for 
himself. If he is willing to work and understands 
horses and general farming he can earn from $160.00 
to $180.00 for the summer season. He can employ a 
neighbor to break ten acres on his land, and in Novem- 
ber can put up a cheap house at, say, from $40.00 to 
$50.00 and live on his land during the winter months, 
when the wages are not as high as in the summer sea- 
son, thus complying with his settlement duties. He 
can do this for three years, and at the end of that 
time will be entitled to a recommendation for his 
patent. He will then be in a position to borrow suf- 
ficient capital on the security of his homestead to pur- 
chase the outfit necessary to enable him to devote his 
whole time to the cultivation and improvement of his 
farm. A settler with a family old enough to work 
can follow the same course. To enable a settler with 
a young family to start comfortably on a quarter sec- 
tion of free grant land, he should have at least $500 
to $1000 capital. 



100 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

Of course capital means opportunity. As an il- 
lustration of what may be done in Canada, an Ameri- 
can settler purchased 480 acres for $2,200: be built a 
house and barn on stone foundations, bought some 
good stock, and went to work. Three years afterward 
he was offered $12,000 cash for his place just as it 
stood, and he declined the offer, saying, "I am here 
to make a home for my boys, and if I had the money 
in hand today, I know of no place in the world where 
I could invest it better." 

To grow a bushel of wheat in Canada costs 35c. 
The present price is $1.00. 

The secret of Winnipeg's rapid growth is the 
wonderful richness of its magical black soil, and fully 
75 per cent of all the grain from the farther west 
provinces passes through Winnipeg on its way to 
market, either home or foreign. 

Winnipeg is a magnificent city, an imposing 
"Gateway to the West." Its streets are wide. Its 
buildings are of the finest class and architecturally 
splendid. City Hall square and its public flower 
gardens are beautiful. The Post Office and Court 
House are very handsome. The Royal Alexandra 
hotel built by the C. P. Railway is a dream of beauty 
and the railway depot of the Canadian Pacific is at 
once the handsomest and best arranged depot of modern 
times. The colonnade entrance and circular driveway 
are pleasing and artistic. It is without question the 
most impressive building in Winnipeg and Winnipeg 
is a city of fine structures. 



WINNIPEG 101 



There is no need to tell of the fine stores, banks, 
asphalted thoroughfares, swift electric car service, 
swifter automobiles, public schools, colleges, the many 
and costly churches, the factories, miles of streets. 
All these belong to Winnipeg and are just right. 

Winnipeg's entertainment of the National Editors 
was princely. Winnipeg is renowned among various 
editorial visitants as being the prince of entertainers. 
A committee met the tourists at the Royal Alexandra 
Hotel. Chartered cars were in waiting and the party 
was conveyed through the city to see its beauties and 
possibilities. Later at the Royal Alexandra a banquet 
was tendered. The large banquetting hall of the hotel 
was magnificently decorated and covers laid for about 
250 guests. The tables were most beautifully de- 
corated with innumerable small flags — the Stars and 
Stripes and the Union Jack. The serving of the ban- 
qust was perfection itself. Beautiful menues were 
used as souvenirs. The entire entertainment was 
magnificent and graceful in every detail and so enjoy- 
able that it is worth telling over and over again. 

We had some very delightful after dinner talks, 
and some farewell taking, as these were our last hours 
in Canada. 

In eloquent and hearty words, tokens of apprecia- 
tion were presented to the faithful and untiring secre- 
tary of the N. E. A., Mr. Parrott, to Mr. W. J. White 
of the Immigration Bureau, who seemed to be two 
men in his accomplishments for the editorial guests, 
to Mr. C. W. Speer, who gave of a ready fund of in- 
formation to eager listeners and to Mr. William H. 
Mayes, who is president of the N. E. A. and the 



102 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 

happiest toaslmaster on two continents. 

With eloquence ringing in our ears and the brilliant 
entertainment of Canada's "Gateway City" dazzling 
our eyes, we boarded our returning train thence south- 
east over the great lakes, wise in the possession of 
new facts and broadened in mental horizon by a 
magnificent tour through Canada. 



THE END 



MAR 15 1910 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



h*r%ti 'i^ i^ ■' 



